Răspuns:
Statue of Johannes Petrus Minckelers from Maastricht
Explicație:
As you walk through the square around the Maastricht City Hall building, you will notice a statue of a man holding a torch. This is the Statue of Johannes Petrus Minckelers - philosopher, inventor and scientist who lived in Maastricht in the eighteenth century.
Its history is grateful for the discovery of the lighting gas, this being the reason why it holds in its hand a torch always lit.
While teaching physics at the University of Leuven, Johannes Minckelers discovered a gas, obtained from heating coal without oxygen, a gas much lighter than air, which could make balloons rise (an element later used by flight pioneers). This happened in 1784. 70 years later Maastricht was proud of its first gas-fired street lighting system.
The statue is located between St. Matthew's Church and the City Hall.
